Opinion: We must consider data center’s effect on Parkland students

“I just need five minutes.”

I will never forget a high school student quietly saying those words to me one afternoon. Not because they did not want to learn. Not because they were unwilling to try. They simply needed a few quiet moments to regulate their emotions before walking back into class.

That moment has stayed with me because it reinforced something educators and student support professionals witness every day: learning does not begin with a lesson plan. It begins with whether a student feels safe enough, calm enough, and regulated enough to learn.

As a certified prevention and education specialist, I work alongside teachers, counselors, administrators and students throughout the Lehigh Valley. I help schools support young people navigating anxiety, depression, trauma, substance use, grief and other challenges that can interfere with learning.

One lesson has become impossible to ignore: environment matters.

In prevention, we often talk about reducing risk factors and strengthening protective factors. Those terms may sound technical, but the principle is straightforward. Students are more likely to thrive when the environments around them support learning, stability, connection and emotional well-being. Schools cannot eliminate every challenge young people face, but they intentionally create conditions that help students succeed. They build trusted relationships, establish predictable routines, teach coping skills and reduce unnecessary stressors because those conditions improve emotional regulation, engagement and healthy decision making. Environment is not separate from education. It is fundamental to it.

For months, our community has debated traffic patterns, stormwater management, utility capacity, engineering reports, zoning ordinances and the economic impact of the proposed Atlas data center. Those are all important discussions.

But I keep coming back to one question I rarely hear anyone ask: How will this affect the more than 3,000 students who attend Parkland High School?

Schools do far more than deliver academic instruction. They provide mental health support, substance use prevention, crisis intervention, behavioral interventions and guidance through some of the most difficult moments in a young person’s life. Every day, educators, counselors and student support teams work to create environments where students feel secure enough to ask for help, recover from setbacks and return to learning.

I have watched students regain confidence because a counselor, teacher or student support professional recognized what they needed before a difficult day became a crisis. Sometimes success is not measured by a test score. Sometimes it is measured by a student asking for help, regrouping and walking back into class believing they can finish the day.

That is why I believe one essential perspective has been missing from the Atlas discussion.

Every major development proposal is evaluated through multiple lenses. Engineers study infrastructure. Environmental experts evaluate stormwater. Traffic engineers analyze congestion. Utility companies examine electrical demand. All of that work is necessary.

But has anyone evaluated the potential impact of placing a 24-hour industrial campus directly across from one of the largest high schools in our region? Has anyone studied how such a project could affect the educational environment for the thousands of students who learn there every day?

If those analyses exist, the community deserves to see them. If they do not, they should be completed before decisions are finalized.

Parkland High School is more than a building. As both a Parkland graduate and the parent of three children in the district, I know it as a place where students learn, compete, perform, volunteer, build friendships and prepare for adulthood. Families entrust the school with their children for nearly seven hours each day. When a project of this magnitude is proposed immediately across the street, it is reasonable to ask whether the educational environment has been evaluated with the same care as traffic, drainage, utilities, engineering and public safety.

Whether someone supports this project or opposes it, I hope we can agree on one principle: When a decision has the potential to shape a school’s environment for decades, the students who learn there deserve to be part of the conversation.

Long after the hearings conclude, permits are issued and construction crews leave, more than 3,000 students will still walk into Parkland High School every morning.

The decisions we make today will shape the environment where they learn tomorrow.

We have carefully studied traffic. We have carefully studied stormwater. We have carefully studied engineering. Those studies are essential. Before our community makes a decision that will affect thousands of students for decades to come, we should be equally confident that we have studied the educational environment with the same level of care.

Because when the well-being of more than 3,000 students is part of the equation, asking how they may be affected is not an obstacle to progress.

It is responsible planning.

This is a contributed opinion column. Caren Lowrey is a certified prevention and education specialist who works in schools throughout the Lehigh Valley. She is running as a Republican in the November election to represent state House District 132. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author, and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. Do you have a perspective to share? Learn more about how we handle guest opinion submissions at themorningcall.com/opinions.